Mean reversion/counter trend is the hardest form of trading there is .. It is also the most seductive type of trading there is I'm just as susceptible to this as anyone else. It is much easier to make money, in the long run, trading with the trend, than fighting the trend. I dont remember Livermore ever saying to trade counter trend/mean reversion, or any of the Market Wizards recommending this style either. Lets just ignore those all those guys who had decades of trading experience. As we elite traders know better :eek: Lets all fade trends, double up when we think the market or stocks are oversold or overbought. Why pursue happiness when we can pursue pain.
Too many stinker weeks , his account had over 600K at its peak i think.. i know he has withdrawn money too.. but his account equity could be starting with a 1 very soon unless he turns things around. It didnt have to get this bad .. he could have easily reduced his downside risk during this draw down while still leaving plenty of upside potential. It is still not too late to do this and protect the trading capital he still has. Here is old equity chart from his peak year, very impressive, lets hope neke can return to his best form.
Look at the bright side, you didn't lose as much as your one-day loss (~130k?). It's not your loss that worries me, it's the stage of your trading. You have been trading for over 10 years, and you are losing money like this. That indicates something. I won't tell you why you are losing money. If I do, everybody here will know the secret. I don't want the moderators-crooks-thieves to know the secret. NO, I don't want to benefit the thieves. They will probably delete my post anyway.
Has this already happened to you pattern39? Are you still trading? There are more traders than ever. The number of trading accounts at brokerages are literally 5 to 10x more than they were 15 years ago. Your neighbor's neighbor may be trading/investing in their private closet rooms and everyone wouldn't even know it. I say trading is becoming like the lottery now. Everyone puts into it. And only a few get the spoils and never have to give it back. But everyone's into it now, so the "karma" is all spread out and doesn't make any difference. If anything it's the big money funds and firms making the most money and making the swings and fooling retail traders, making dummy pullbacks as they time and separate their massive share selling. They never have to give back their profits what with the corrupt politics and SEC. Just like America will never be given back to the Native Americans. An individual retail trader making hundreds of thousands is increasingly insignificant. Retail traders are trying to make money from the big money and High Frequency Trading computers today as the underdog, not the other way around. Retail traders losing money are losing it to big money movements, not to other retail traders. A retail trader's relative small success is no different than a small shop owner making the same money selling slave-labor made products from China. Those 25 million jobs lost to overseas from the current generations will never be given back to the U.S. The next generation of jobs are going to Brazil and South America's current industrial revolution next. The reason why it's so easy to lose money back to the markets for the retail traders because it's heavily in favor of the big money. They move the markets. They have massive analyst resources and mass psychology predictability profiles just like TV commercial marketers know which demographic is watching at what time and most likely to buy a certain product. They know how the herd thinks and can time their stop hunting whipsaws and fakeouts accordingly. The small retail trader has a major disadvantage against the armies of HFT computers today. Go for it Neke, just be careful about over-leveraging your option positions.
Weekly Update for week 33/50 ended 8/26/2011 Another bad one, down 6.2K (2.9%). Was supposed to be a flat week until Thurs when I shorted OVTI @ 18.00 AH. Covered Fri PM @ 19.50 and went long at 19.00, sold @ 17.20. Wicked whipsaw. Total of about 10K lost. This is what happens when your account is at a precariously low level. No ability to hold on based on initial conviction, unable to endure a 5K unrealised loss. It's probably time that will change the current mood. Until then continuing to size low. Code: Opening Balance: 217,188 Net loss for the week 6,217 ------------------------------------------------- Net Balance: 210,971 Number of Trades 12 Number of Profitable Trades 6 Since Inception of Thread 01/8/2011 - 8/26/2011 Opening Balance: 335,899 Net loss (Less Margin Interest) 124,928 (Down 37%) ------------------------------------------------ Net Balance 210,971 Number of Trades 670 Number of Profitable Trades 353
Have the statistics for your automated strategies pointed to 50/50 most of the time? Or is better than that? Weekly what percent of your backtests are profitable? Monthly? Annually? I ask because it doesn't seem like your strategies have been working this year, and certainly not the last couple weeks.